Investigating Tasks in Formal Language Learning

Edited by Dr. María del Pilar García Mayo

Publication date:

13 December 2006

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x156mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781853599279

This book contributes to the growth of interest in task-based language learning and teaching that has been seen in recent years. It brings together research that focuses on various aspects and effects of pedagogic task design and presents work that uses tasks to examine oral interaction, written production, vocabulary and reading, lexical innovation and pragmatics in different formal language learning contexts and in different languages (English as a second/foreign language, French/German/Italian/Spanish as foreign languages). It also provides guidelines for task classification, sequencing and design.

The book is addressed to both professionals and students interested in second language acquisition research. It will also be of use to professionals involved in language pedagogy and curriculum design.

Introduction - María del Pilar García Mayo

1. Criteria for Classifying and Sequencing Pedagogic Tasks - Peter Robinson

2. Information Distribution and Goal Orientation in Second Language Task Design - Craig P. Lambert and Steve Engler

3. The Simultaneous Manipulation of Task Complexity along Planning Time and [+/- Here-and-Now]: Effects on L2 Oral Production - Roger Gilabert

4. Tasks, Negotiation and L2 Learning in a Foreign Language Context - Marisol Fernández García

5. Attention to Form across Collaborative Tasks by Low-proficiency Learners in an EFL Setting - Ana Alegría de la Colina and María del Pilar García Mayo

6. Cognitive Task Complexity and Linguistic Performance in French L2 Writing - Folkert Kuiken and Ineke Vedder

7. The Effect of Manipulating Task Complexity and the [+/- Here-and-Now] Dimension on L2 Written Narrative Discourse - Tomohito Ishikawa

8. Writing Tasks: The Effects of Collaboration - Neomy Storch and Gillian Wigglesworth

9. L2 Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading Comprehension: The Influence of Task Complexity - Elke Peters

10. Task-effect on the Use of Lexical Innovation Strategies in Interlanguage Communication - Elsa González Álvarez

11. Fostering EFL Learners’ Awareness of Requesting through Explicit and Implicit Consciousness-raising Tasks - Eva Alcón Soler

12. Interactive Task Design: Metachat and the Whole Learner - Marie-Noëlle Lamy

Index

The book provides a much needed examination of options in classifying and sequencing language learning tasks. Framed by Robinson's insightful overview of competing theoretical claims in the area, eleven new data-based studies elucidate relationships between pedogic task types and accuracy, complexity and fluency in L2 speech and writing, and between task types and acquisition. Garcia-Mayo's book advances the international research agenda on task-based language teaching.